Samuel Taylor Coleridge

“ The purifying alchemy of Education may transmute the fierceness of an ignorant man into virtuous energy—but what remedy shall we apply to him, whom Plenty has not softened, whom Knowledge has not taught Benevolence? This is one among the many fatal effects which result from the want of fixed principles. Convinced that vice is error, we shall entertain sentiments of Pity for the vicious, not of Indignation—and even with respect to that bad Man, to whom we have before alluded, altho' we are now groaning beneath the burthen of his misconduct, we shall harbour no sentiments of Revenge ”

“ It is more honourable to the Head, as well as to the Heart, to be missed by our eagerness in the pursuit of Truth, than to be safe from blundering by contempt of it. The happiness of Mankind is the end of Virtue, and Truth is the Knowledge of the means; which he will never seriously attempt to discover, who has not habitually interested himself in the welfare of others. The searcher after Truth most love and be beloved ”

“ In Robespierre, its influence was assisted by the properties of his disposition.—Enthusiasm, even in the gentlest temper, will frequently generate sensations of an unkindly order. If we clearly perceive any one thing to be of vast and infinite importance to ourselves and all mankind, our first feelings impel us to turn with angry contempt from those, who doubt and oppose it. The ardor of undisciplined benevolence seduces us into malignity: and whenever our hearts are warm, and our objects great and excellent, intolerance is the sin that does most easily beset us. ”

“ Accustomed to regard all the affairs of man as a process, they never hurry and they never pause. Theirs is not that twilight of political knowledge which gives us just light enough to place one foot before the other; as they advance the scene fill opens upon them, and they press right onward with a vast and various landscape of existence around them. Calmness and energy mark all their actions. Convinced that vice originates not in the man, but in the surrounding circumstances ”

“ Indignation is the handsome brother of Anger and Hatred. The Temple of Despotism, like that of Tescalipoca, the Mexican Deity, is built of human skulls, and cemented with human blood;—let us beware that we be not transported into revenge while we are levelling the loathsome Pile; lest when we erect the edifice of Freedom we but vary the stile of Architecture, not change the materials. ”

“ Unillumined by Philosophy, and stimulated to a lust of revenge by aggravated wrongs, they would make the Altar of Freedom stream with blood, while the grass grew in the desolated halls of Justice. These men are the rude materials from which a detestable Minister manufactures conspiracies. ”

“ Of this however we may be certain, whether we be Christians or Infidels, Aristocrats or Republicans, that our minds are in a state unsusceptible of Knowledge, when we feel an eagerness to detect the Falsehood of an Adversary's reasonings, not a sincere wish to discover if there be Truth in them;—when we examine an argument in order that we may answer it, instead of answering because we have examined it.
Our opponents are chiefly successful in confuting the Theory of Freedom by the practices of its Advocates: from our lives they draw the most forcible arguments against our doctrines. ”

“ The World has got no Law to make me rich.
They too, who live from Hand to Mouth, will most frequently become improvident. Possessing no stock of happiness they eagerly seize the gratifications of the moment, and snatch the froth from the wave as it passes by them. Nor is the desolate state of their families a restraining motive, unsoftened as they are by education, and benumbed into selfishness by the torpedo touch of extreme Want. Domestic affections depend on association. We love an object if, as often as we see or recollect it, an agreeable sensation arises in our minds, But alas! ”

“ The unhappy children of vice and folly, whose tempers are adverse to their own happiness as well as to the happiness of others, will at times awaken a natural pang; but he looks forward with gladdened heart to that glorious period when Justice shall have established the universal fraternity of Love. These soul-ennobling views bestow the virtues which they anticipate. He whose mind is habitually imprest with them soars above the present state of humanity, and may be justly said to dwell in the presence of the Most High. ”

“ Religion will cheer his gloom with her promises, and by habituating his mind to anticipate an infinitely great Revolution hereafter, may prepare it even for the sudden reception of a less degree of amelioration in this World.
But if we hope to instruct others, we should familiarize our own minds to some fixed and determinate principles of action. The World is a vast labyrinth, in which almost every one is running a different way, and almost every one manifesting hatred to those who do not run the same way. ”

“ That vice is the effect of error and the offspring of surrounding circumstances, the object therefore of condolence not of anger, is a proposition easily understood, and as easily demonstrated. But to make it spread from the understanding to the affections, to call it into action, not only in the great exertions of Patriotism, but in the daily and hourly occurrences of social life, requires the most watchful attentions of the most energetic mind. ”

“ A system of fundamental Reform will scarcely be effected by massacres mechanized into Revolution. Yet rejected intreaty leads in its consequences to fierce coercion. And much as we deprecate the event, we have reason to conjecture that throughout all Europe it may not be far distant. The folly of the rulers of mankind grows daily more wild and ruinous: Oppression is grievous—the oppressed feel and are restless. ”

“ It is a mockery of our fellow creatures' wrongs to call them equal in rights, when by the bitter compulsion of their wants we make them inferior to us in all that can soften the heart, or dignify the understanding. ”

“ Let us not indulge our malignant Passions under the mask of Humanity. Instead of railing with infuriate declamation against these excesses, we shall be more profitably employed In developing the sources of them. French Freedom is the Beacon, which while it guides to Equality, should shew us the Dangers that throng the road.
The Annals of the French Revolution have recorded in Letters of Blood, that the Knowledge of the Few cannot counteract the Ignorance of the Many ”

“ It is not enough that we have once swallowed these Truths—we must feed on them, as insects on a leaf, till the whole heart be coloured by their qualities, and shew its food in every the minutest fibre. ”

“ This class, at present, is comparatively small—Yet soon to form an overwhelming majority, unless great and immediate efforts are used to lessen the intolerable grievances of our poorer brethren, and infuse into their sorely wounded hearts the healing qualities of knowledge. For can we wonder that men should want humanity, who want all the circumstances of life that humanize? Can we wonder that with the ignorance of Brutes they should unite their ferocity? ”

“ On the report of French victories they blaze into Republicanism, at a tale of French excesses they darken into Aristocrats; and seek for shelter among those despicable adherents to fraud and tyranny, who ironically style themselves Constitutionalists.— These dough-baked Patriots are not however useless. This oscillation of political opinion will retard the day of Revolution, and it will operate as a preventive to its excesses. Indecisiveness of character, though the effect of timidity, is almost always associated with benevolence. ”

“ The Patriots of France either hastened into the dangerous and gigantic Error of making certain Evil the means of contingent Good, or were sacrificed by the Mob, with whose prejudices and ferocity their unbending Virtue forbade them to assimilate. Like Sampson, the People were strong—like Sampson, the People were blind. ”

“ There are a third class among the friends of Freedom, who possess not the wavering character of the first description, nor the ferocity last delineated. They pursue the interests of Freedom steadily, but with narrow and self-centering views: they anticipate with exultation the abolition of privileged orders, and of Acts that persecute by exclusion from the right of citizenship. They are prepared to join in digging up the rubbish of mouldering Establishments, and stripping off the tawdry pageantry of Governments. Whatever is above them they are most willing to drag down ”

“ He would appear to me to have adopted the best as well as the most benevolent mode of diffusing Truth, who uniting the zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philosopher, should be personally among the Poor, and teach them their Duties in order that he may render them susceptible of their Rights.
Yet by what means can the lower Classes be made to learn their Duties, and urged to practise them? The human Race may perhaps possess the capability of all excellence; and Truth, I doubt not, is omnipotent to a mind already disciplined for its reception ”

“ Do the childish titles of Aristocracy detract from my domestic comforts, or prevent my intellectual acquisitions? But, those institutions of Society which should condemn me to the necessity of twelve hours daily toil, would make my soul a slave, and sink the rational being in the mere animal. ”

“ The situation of the Poor is perilous: they are indeed both
"from within and from without
Unarm'd to all Temptations."
Prudential reasoning will in general be powerless with them. For the incitements of this world are weak in proportion as we are wretched—
The World is not my Friend, nor the World's Law. ”

“ The most consummate pride reigns in your heart, the pride of Birth, of Riches, and of Talents. With this triple pride, a man never sincerely believes the doctrine of Equality: he may repeat its dogmas, but efficient Faith is not in him." Preface to Briffot's Travels in America.
You reply to Brissot, that these luxuries are the employment of industry, and the best means of circulating your property. Be it so, Renounce then the proud pretensions of democracy; do not profess Tenets which it is impossible for you surrounded by all the symbols of superiority to wish realized. ”

“ The first Class among the professed Friends of Liberty is composed of Men, who unaccustomed to the labour of thorough investigation, and not particularly oppressed by the Burthen of State, are yet impelled by their feelings to disapprove of its grosser depravities, and prepared to give an indolent Vote in favour of Reform, Their sensibilities unbraced by the co-operation of fixed Principles, they offer no sacrifices to the divinity of active Virtue. ”

“ Companies resembling the present will, from a variety of circumstances, consist chiefly of the zealous Advocates for Freedom. It will therefore be our endeavour, not so much to excite the torpid, as to regulate the feelings of the ardent: and above all, to evince the necessity of bottoming on fixed Principles, that so we may not be the unstable Patriots of Passion or Accident, nor hurried away by names of which we have not sifted the meaning, and by tenets of which we have not examined the consequences. ”

“ We certainly should never attempt to make Proselytes by appeals to the selfish feelings—and consequently, should plead for the Oppressed, not to them. The Author of an essay on political Justice considers private Societies as the sphere of real utility—that (each one illuminating those immediately beneath him,) Truth by a gradual descent may at last reach the lowest order. ”

“ It must not however be disguised, that at all times, but more especially when the public feelings are wavy and tumultuous, artful Demagogues may create this opinion: and they, who are inclined to tolerate evil as the means of contingent good, should reflect, that if the excesses of terrorism gave to the Republic that efficiency and repulsive force which its circumstances made necessary, they likewise afforded to the hostile Courts the most powerful support, and excited that indignation and horror, which every where precipitated the subject into the designs of the ruler. ”

“ Nor let it be forgotten, that these excesses perpetuated the war in La Vendee and made it more terrible, both by the accession of numerous partizans, who had fled from the persecution of Robespierre, and by inspiring the Chouans with fresh fury, and an unsubmitting spirit of revenge and desperation.
Revolutions are sudden to the unthinking only. Political Disturbances happen not without their warning Harbingers. ”

“ The process of Revolution in France has been dreadful, and mould incite us to examine with an anxious eye the motives and manners of those, whose conduct and opinions seem calculated to forward a similar event in our own country. ”

“ We cannot therefore inculcate on the minds of each other too often or with too great earnestness the necessity of cultivating benevolent affections. We should be cautious how we indulge the feelings even of virtuous indignation. ”

“ I penetrate a little further;-—your Cielings are gilded—magnificent Vases adorn your Chimney-Pieces—I walk upon the richest Carpets—the most costly Wines, the most exquisite Dishes, cover your Table—a crowd of Servants surround it—you treat them with haughtiness;—No! you are not a Patriot. ”

“ Even so, in the present agitations of the public mind, every one ought to consider his intellectual faculties as in a state of immediate requisition. All may benefit Society in some degree. The exigences of the Times do not permit us to stay for the maturest years, lest the opportunity be lost, while we are waiting for an increase of power. ”